UN committee may again consider listing Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’

Exclusive: Solicitors, scientists and NGOs recommend the UN to coerce Australia to do more to shield the world heritage site

The Great Barrier Reef could be considered again for an in danger rolling by the United Nations World Heritage Committee in accordance with the devastating bleaching this year, the Guardian can reveal.

The news came as a group of prominent advocates, canadian researchers and NGOs wrote to the committee, counselling it to ask Australia to do more to shield the reef.

As a condition of UNESCO not rolling the Great Barrier Reef as in danger in 2015, the World Heritage Committee said Australia needed to report back to the committee on 1 December 2016, detailing the progress of preservation how brand-new 2050 water pollution targets were being implemented and funded.

If UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee find they have not been adequately enacted or funded, the shoal could be considered again for inclusion on the in danger inventory at a cros in 2017.

But the Guardian can now reveal Australia will also need to report on how it is dealing with the current bleaching, where almost a part of the coral on the shoal has been killed.

We would expect that that report from Australia is going to cover all the significant concepts that have happened since June 2015 and whether there are a difference in the picture of the managing or the response that is needed, said Tim Badman, conductor of the IUCNs World Heritage Programme, which cautions the Committee on the state of its natural world heritage properties. The bleaching phenomenon is a brand-new problem to be considered.

State of Conservation reports, which are addressed to the World Heritage Committee, help it implement brand-new conservation measures. They are produced for the most threatened natural world heritage sites, and only if there are new issues that need to be considered.

The IUCN says: In extreme cases, where a locate is in verified or potential danger of forgetting the Outstanding Universal Value for which it was inscribed on the World Heritage List, the Committee may choose to engrave it on the Danger List.

One such report was made on the Great Barrier Reef in 2015, and that time the World Heritage Committee came close to rolling the Reef on the Danger List.

Badman told the Guardian the IUCN would also decide, in the first month of 2017, whether or not a brand-new state of preservation report was necessitated, given the damage to the reef.

Were learning brand-new issues with the bleaching phenomenon as a brand-new part of the issue to be considered, Badman said. But he said whether or not the bleaching would lead to consideration of inclusion on the Danger List was hypothesi and not something the IUCN or UNESCO would comment on at this stage.

The Australian government wasted $400 m lobbying for the Great Barrier Reef not to be included on the inventory, Fairfax media revealed last year, and the environment executive, Greg Hunt, has said the shoal is the work of his life. Ever since the decision was obliged not to list the shoal, Hunt has trumpeted it as proof of the governmental forces good management, saying the government got the shoal taken off a watch list.

Meanwhile, most major Australian environmental NGOs, as well as a group of prominent scientists, including John Veron, Will Steffen and Terry Hughes, have uttered their frustration at Australias acts since the decision last year and exhorted the World Heritage Committee to necessitate more of Australia.

Since the World Heritage Committee considered the threats to the shoal at its meeting in mid-2 015, Australia has approved the expansion of the coal export port at Abbot Point within and neighboring to the world heritage expanse, they said in a letter addressed to members of the World Heritage Committee.

This project would require dredging 1.1 m cubic metres of previously undisturbed seagrass habitat within the world heritage expanse and dropping the dredge curdle neighboring to nearby coastal wetlands.

It prolonged: To add insult to injury, the expansion of Abbot Point port is intended to facilitate the export of coal from the massive Carmichael coalmine, which the Australian and Queensland governments have also recently approved.

The symbols authors also expressed concern at the governmental forces decision, revealed by the Guardian in May, to interfere and have all mention of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef removed from a UNESCO report on world heritage sites and climate change.

They “re just saying that” activity assigns greatly doubt on its commitment to addressing threats to the reef.

They also said UNESCOs capitulation to Australias distres was inconsistent with its aim to do its utmost to inform the public about the effects of climate change on world heritage properties.

Noni Austin, an Australian lawyer at the US-based Earthjustice, said the current bleaching phenomenon presented the world heritage site was in crisis and requires a brand-new and pressing response from the committee.

If the world heritage system is to have any evaluate in protecting our most precious and indispensable situates, the committee must address the threat of climate change and Australia must accept its duty to protect the Great Barrier Reef for potential benefits of the global community by terminating its relentless promotion of soiled fossil fuels, she said.

Jon Day, previously one of the directors at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and now at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said the governments own reports presented the reefs excellent universal appraises were being threatened.

The reef calls more government assistance, more leader from industry and, crucially, most widespread public patronize if future generations are to enjoy what UNESCO considers is the most bio-diverse world heritage asset on countries around the world, he said.